Shropshire Magazine

Hayley Jay with her two eventers, Star Decision and the now-retired Diamond Raptor.

She is one of Shropshire’s great modern-day success stories, an inspirational figure who rose from obscurity, a broken home and personal tragedy to the top of her profession. Hayley J tells her story to Neil Thomas

Pictures: Russell Davies

She has been described as one of Shrewsbury’s greatest exports. Her creative genius and talented hands have helped thousands of women to look stunning. 

The famous have worn her designs at BAFTA awards ceremonies, while celebrity brides have been pictured in OK! and Hello! magazines in her gowns. In London, she has moved in the same circles as Jasper Conran, Zandra Rhodes and Jeff Banks. 

She has won awards and shared her vast knowledge of the fashion world on radio and television.

On October 28, hundreds of people are set to gather at Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn to celebrate the remarkable story of one of the UK’s top fashion designers, Hayley J. The event will see the theatre’s main stage take on all the glamour and pizzazz of a top catwalk show, with professional models in a breath-taking array of classical and contemporary evening gowns.

The occasion will mark Hayley’s 25th anniversary in business and, at the same time, raise money for a charity very dear to her heart, Hope House, the children’s hospice on the outskirts of her home town of Oswestry.

Hayley has used the cachet of her name to raise money for Hope House in the past, driven by the memory of her beloved younger brother Nicholas who died from a chronic childhood illness.

“I was a few years older and more of a mother to him, really,” she says tenderly of a relationship rendered even closer by her parents’ marriage break-up.

Bentley the Jack Russell terrier welcomes clients to Hayley’s High Street premises.

“My father was a carpenter and my mother worked for a sewing and knitting machine retailer, and I grew up in a house  where all my clothes were made for me,” she recalls of a childhood in which she was educated at the small – now defunct – private school Queen’s Park in Oswestry.

However, the biggest influence on the life of young Hayley Jane (hence the ‘J’) Jay was her grandmother Mrs Bertha Watkins.

“I lived with my grandparents and my grandmother really encouraged me and was so supportive.”

The discovery that Hayley was dyslexic made the idea of an academically orientated career problematic. However, this confident, self-motivated girl already had an idea of the path she wanted her life to take. That was underpinned by a vocational arts course at Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology where she was introduced to textiles teacher Gudran Kyle.

“She took me under her wing. She created beautiful clothes and was so inspiring. She helped me to believe that a girl from Oswestry could achieve wonderful things in life.” 

It led to Hayley gaining a place at the University of Central Lancashire, where she gained an honours degree in fashion.

“It was a four-year course and it meant I had to write a thesis. The subject I chose was the 1920s period – its costumes and how it reflected the economic and social climate.”

Hayley also sampled life in London when, for a year, she worked for Frank Usher, meeting such fashion luminaries as Jeff Banks, Zandra Rhodes and Jasper Conran. Home was a tube ride away in a rented room in a convent.

Talented

“I learnt so much in that year working alongside talented people – pattern cutters, people who could drape  fabric onto a dummy. I’m quite disciplined anyway but it was so regimented and quite old-fashioned in a way. For instance, a bell would ring for start of work, to tell you when you could go for a cup of tea and at the end of the day, and you had to work to it,” says Hayley with a chuckle.

Following graduation and bursting with ideas, the 21-year-old was determined to make a living out of her own designs rather than working for someone else. Her drive and ambition happily coincided with a government initiative to create more small businesses – for these were the Thatcher years. It was 1984 and the previous year the Enterprise Allowance Scheme had been introduced, paying £40 a week to encourage the unemployed to become self-employed. Hayley became one of its earliest beneficiaries.

The company was started from grandmother Bertha’s garage in Oswestry which became Hayley’s workshop. She worked flat out to create a series of original designs with which she filled a small shop which opened a few months later in The Parade in Shrewsbury with the aid of a loan from Barclays Bank.

“There was so much more to it than making dresses, so much for me to learn; commercial rates, VAT, the legal side of running a business, that kind of thing. It could have been daunting, but luckily I’m very self-motivated and I was determined to make it work.”

Even the self-assured Hayley couldn’t have been prepared for just how immediately successful she would be, though.

She took out an advert for her shop in the Shropshire Star newspaper, networked a little, and opened the doors for the first time in late 1984. Within the first week she had sold half her stock. 

Replacement clothes were needed quickly to keep up with customer demand. “I’d shut at five o’clock in the evening and get down on the floor and cut out everything I needed there, leaving quite late. After a while I ended up with housemaid’s knee,” she says, laughing heartily.

Some of the skilled seamstresses at work on the latest designs.

Eventually she found a separate studio in nearby Frankwell which meant she could work outside opening hours in far more comfort. After nine years in the Parade, she moved the business to its present site, an elegant four-storey period building in High Street, Shrewsbury, which houses both the retail and wholesale sides of the business, and a studio where all the gowns are designed and handmade by Hayley and her team of skilled craftswomen.

As the business grew, Hayley’s reputation for brilliance grew with it, and national acclaim followed. In 1990 she won the Young Designer of the Year award and later added to that Classic Designer of the Year.

In 1998 her contribution to raising Shropshire’s profile was recognised when she received the first ever Certificate of Merit awarded by Shrewsbury’s civic leaders for her “outstanding contribution to Shrewsbury as a centre of excellence”.

She says with pride: “That award really meant so much to me. That the county town of my home county was honouring me was very special.”

Today, 46-year-old Hayley J has the world at her feet. She is nationally acknowledged as one of Britain’s leading bridalwear specialists, with brides-to-be travelling from all corners of the world to commission a gown for their special day. She has stockists in the US and the Middle East as well as all over the UK.

The gowns are couture-made in Shrewsbury, enabling exquisite one-off designs to be created with a superb eye for detail. Hayley uses beautiful, often unusual, fabrics and frequently incorporates breath-takingly delicate embroidery.

She adds: “I specialise in making to order and am probably best known for designing gowns which have a historical inspiration, interpreted in a modern, yet classic, way.”

As well as the new and exciting designs continuously being added to in the shop, Hayley has displayed at Harrogate twice a year for the bridal trade, where she won two top awards. She also exhibits for the public at the NEC, Birmingham and has shown in the past at G-Mex in Manchester and Earl’s Court, London.

Her gowns can often be seen gracing the pages of the country’s leading bridal magazines and she has strong links with many fashion editors, frequently creating special commissions for their photoshoots. For instance at a recent bridal shoot at The Dorchester in London, she worked with, among others, photographer Carl Bengston (Elle magazine and Italia Esposa), stylist Elaine Briggs (former fashion editor of Brides Magazine) and Ben Cooke (hairdresser to David and Victoria Beckham).

Her designs were complemented by exclusive jewellery from Boodle & Dunthorne, with whom she has worked for many years.

She has come a long way since those early days in that garage in Oswestry, but Hayley J still has her feet firmly on the ground.

“I still feel very honoured that people come to me to design their wedding dresses. It is, for many, the most important day of their lives and to be trusted with one of the most important aspects of it is still very thrilling for me. I like to get to know my customers; some have become friends and, in some cases, I’ve found myself designing wedding dresses for their daughters years later.”

Aside from weddings, Hayley designs striking ball gowns and has dressed musicians and entertainers for special performances.

Hayley insists that she retains the drive for perfection that she had back in 1984, and has no plans to wind down.

“I love working, why would I give it up?” she says, patting her two-year-old Jack Russell dog Bentley, a familiar sight for customers.

There have been ‘lows’ over the years, not least the ending in divorce of her 13-year marriage, a subject on which she doesn’t dwell.

Hayley J at work.

Passion

However, there appear to have been far more ‘highs’ and among them is her passion for horses. Hayley took up riding regularly six years ago, and most weekends goes off eventing around the country. A member of Shrewsbury Riding Club, she took lessons from Lucinda Green (née Prior-Palmer), former world champion and six-times Badminton Trials winner. Hayley has competed at British Eventing level against the likes of Zara Phillips and Shropshire-based Badminton champion Oliver Townend. She has also become great friends with international three-day-event rider Lottie Prentice, whom she met on a trip overseas.

For several years Hayley rode her old faithful Diamond Raptor, who is now retired, replaced by the young and impetuous Star Decision.

“He’s a lovely looking horse but he’s a bit lively to say the least,” says Hayley chuckling. “I absolutely love horses and it is a great escape from the pressures of the business. It is wonderful to switch off and do something completely different.”

Even so, the same drive that Hayley showed in forging her spectacular career is now helping her to improve and succeed at eventing, with its tough disciplines of dressage, cross country and showjumping. 

Each week, thousands pass the classy facade of 7 High Street, Shrewsbury, where Hayley oftens likes to put on a stylish window display for the tourists. Behind it, as you can see, there is quite a story.

And the secret of Hayley’s success?

“A lot of hard work and determination, for sure,” she answers. Then she adds, thoughfully: “I think what we do is now a dying art. So much is mass-produced that a gown hand-made with skill and attention to detail is a rarity. My little team here is fantastic and we pass on the skills to younger members who join. It is important that such skills are not lost. I think we have a niche here. It seems many people still appreciate something individual.”

It’s been quite a 25 years. . . 

• www.hayleyj.co.uk